The Hungry Squid

We're busy people. Between work, school, travel, the dog, housework, and the million of other things that eat away at those shriking minutes in the day, we've barely had the chance to breathe this past year. Sadly, busy-ness translated into the temporary exit of the culinary Squid. After all, what's a ceph to do if there's no time to cook pork chops , lemon rice, or even fish tacos ? She fries up some noodles, of course. M and I fall back onto this old favorite on nights when cooking is the last thing that we want to do. We had our first transcendent experience sampling this dish after biking 20 km in the Indonesian heat and winding up in a dusty little town, where a kind lady fed us a heap of savoury, saucy noodles with perfectly fried eggs and fresh, hot sambal. Since that transformative meal (and the dozens of other near-perfect versions of the same that we had through the rest of our trip), packages of Indonesian-style instant noodles have been a...

Thinking back on the last 7 months with the Wallander,  I'm always struck by just how much being dog owners has changed our lives. Morning routines, evening activities, even work hours (to some extent) are shifted to include the little furball, all modifications made willingly, with much love. Wally has transformed the way in which we live our Atlantic lives, in the best possible way. We are not crazy-obsessive dog parents; however, one thing that we are particularly careful about is what we feed the monster. There is so much variability in the nutritional value of puppy food available, which can make finding an affordable, high-quality brand a challenge.   The same issue exists for treats, and the brands that sell the good stuff charge premium for their products.  So, when my mom sent me this recipe for home made dog biscuits I jumped at the chance to give them a try. Wickedly easy, this recipe yields enough biscuits to last over a month, even when r...

Thanksgiving this year came at the perfect time. After a crazy summer and a lightning-fast September, it was lovely to have the chance to rest and to spend a few lazy days enjoying the Haligonian sunshine. I was fortunate enough to be invited to three Thanksgiving dinners this year, and spent much of the long weekend in the company of friends, new and old. One of the things that I love most about Thanksgiving is the culture and spirit of sharing, the knowledge that everyone at the table has contributed in some small way, material or otherwise, to the meal. Our contribution to the third and final dinner was a French apple tart, elegant in its buttery simplicity. The puff pastry (truly wonderful stuff) flakily supports sweet layers of thinly sliced early fall apple, glazed over with salted caramel; served with Madagascar bourbon vanilla ice cream, is as decadent as it is demure. The perfect finish to a rich turkey meal, and a last hurrah to the vestiges of an east cost India...

I haven't written in a while, but it isn't for a lack of wanting, or a lack of will. Rather, it's for an excess of Wallander. Wally is the Portuguese Water Dog puppy that recently became part of our household. He is a lot of things: fluffy, loving, soft, energetic, stubborn, gentle, smart, wily. He is the sweetest thing, and despite the incredible amount of attention he requires, he is the light of our lives. Dog ownership caused us to put experimenting with food on the back burner (...) but now that he has settled into a routine (and is calming down a bit), we've started to put more time into our neglected hobbies. Looking for a new recipe to try one night, I came across a beautiful cookbook by Naomi Duguid entitled Burma: Rivers of Flavor . My mother gave it to me a couple of years ago but for some reason I had never taken a stab at any of the recipes. As a book, Burma  impossibly lush, full of photographs and descriptions of the intriguing...